Our defense gave up 61% shooting in the first half as they must have assumed with no Howard and Jameer they would dare everyone else to shoot and Bass and Carter scored 38 points on them in the first half

Someone wake me when Kuester starts playing Daye - you know the F'ing HOT GUY ON THE TEAM WHO KUESTER TOOK OUT OF THE LINEUP. This season is pretty much a lost season now. The one thing we had going for us was great 3 pt shooting, so Kuester dissembles that aspect of our team by pretty much benching our two best 3 pt shooters (Gordon and Daye) for the incredibly ineffective Rip and the way overplayed and overrelied upon Tay. But at least we get to watch Maxiell (you know, the F'ing 6'6" journeyman play tons of minutes to start each half with ancient Ben Wallace, ensuring that the Pistons don't have a freaking guy on the team playing who can stretch the court - oh, and by the way, ensuring we don't have a single post player on the court either. Yeah, that's going to work.

The best thing is that the only young player developing is Monroe, and Daye, a potentially dominant young offensive player gets to rot on the bench.

Massive massive embarassment to the franchise. We couldn't beat a team missing 5 or 6 of their best players, even though we were playing at home We don't belong in this league with any quality team.

The Pistons will be lucky to have 1000 fans in the arena for any of the rest of their home games. I cannot imagine who wants to watch this crap - unless y'all enjoy watching Tay slow the game down and back his man into the lane - as if he could ever be the best offensive player on a good team.

If you thought the last two losses in Florida were bad.......then you ain't seen nothing...Magic 104-Pistons 91

The Magic were operating with only 8 players tonight and five of them scored in double figures. (two allstars were sick) The Pistons offered little defense despite leading at the half.....but the dreaded third quarter got them again and then the equally dreaded 4th qtr. Pistons scored only 36 pts in the second half and they not only let Vince Carter score the Magics first 9 pts, but then they let Brandon Bass put in an all star performance.

The Pistons call them selves shaking up the lineup by sitting Bynum, but it didn't help as TMac came in to run the point and delivered no assists and only 4 pts. In fact we struggled in the 2nd qtr with the Mac running things....

Both Stuckey and Hamilton were 3-9 shooting from the field compared to Vinsanity's 25 pts and 9 assists which trumped their combined effort of 21 pts and 10 assists.

The Pistons had 2 more three balls and 3 more FT's than the Magic and still lost by 13 as the Magic got their in the second half when it counted.

Tay was the lone star on the Piston side doing all he could to keep the Pistons within striking distance tossing in 30 points. BenGO was our leading rebounder??? with 9 boards (no one else had more than 3) But after getting limited minutes lately he has lost his shooting touch going 2-11.

Brendan Bass at one point was 10-10 and finished with 27 pts off the bench including 18 in the first half. Our two so call bigs Max and Ben could not stop Bass, Gortat or Rashard, and neither could Charlie, Tmac or Tay. Max got the Pistons first six points of the game and never scored again. Daye got in for five minutes in the second qtr, got two fouls trying to stop Bass and was never heard or seen from again.

To me Joe didn't pursue Bass or Raymond Felton enough in the offseason and now both have come back to bite him. This is what happens when you get fooled into thinking you have top caliber guys on your team and none of them would start for any other team in the league.

Still pairing up Ben Wallace and JMAX to start games though. And in the 2nd half - left Daye out. Quite an oversight.

But hey, we actually did pair up JMAX and Monroe in the first half, even though only for 2 minutes. And Bynum was dropped from the rotation.

This game was one point shy of being a tie with one minute left in the first half.

How did we do on offense with TMAC running the point. Pretty darn good. But our defense had problems so the points were not standing up.

Again, CV played too much. The whole game, we had trouble with defense. So adding a defensive player into the mix would be the best bet. But we don't even dress Summers, one of our best defenders. Instead, we go with CV, and that does not help any when you are already struggling on D. CV did hit some threes, and score inside just a bit. But is it worth it? Just how often do any points CV gets end up standing up? Few.

Yes, Orlando had the flu bug hit them. So what. They still had plenty of scorers, while there worst defender was one of the sick. Orlando is still a good team, even without Howard. Their coach stresses defense incessantly and it shows.

On the other hand, while we do some good help defense now and then, overall, we are terrible on watching the perimeter these days. Yes, it continues to be a bad weak spot for Stuckey as far as fighting thru picks. That don't help. But a lot of it is just not sticking to shooters. Hey, if they drive in on you, so what. Somebody should be covering you. If not, hey, its still better to chase them off the 3 point line on occasion, rather than letting them know they are completely safe from harassment out there. A lot of that is just lack of effort. Often, just one pass was all Orlando needed to get an open shot on the perimeter.

Monroe continues, rapidly lately, to learn to guard the ball with his body as his shot goes up. Still has to learn to hold the ball up more though so guards can't slap the ball away from him. I think he will learn - but who the heck is coaching this guy -seems he only learns from game time.

Tay had a great game on offense. Helped a lot that he often was out there with TMAC as a 2-3 combo. Lot of height. Some people think it did not work having TMAC out there like that - but they are missing the dynamic of us having lots of mismatches to exploit like that. Tay was scoring a ton along side TMAC. Ain't nothing needs changing there. More practice with this unit - like we saw several weeks ago - will work wonders.

We could not stop Bass. And at times, we could not stop Carter. And if they were not scoring, Lewis was nailing a triple on us. But believe it or not, some of that was just Orlando making tough shots. Our defense was not always that bad, other than the perimeter stuff, which was, absolutely, terrible.

This was an entertaining game to watch thru the first 3 quarters. And heck, if we had played Daye in the 2nd half, who knows, we just might have won this one - even if we did have Jason and Big Ben paired up as starters.

Speaking of that, what was that? JMAX has it going on his jumper. So first Tay, then Ben Wallace, start trying to take over the offense. Seems anything but get it back to JMAX. Well, Ben actually did make a shot, and Tay turned out, eventually, to be the hot hand.

OK, again, better coaching this one. Still need a lot of work on the defense. And got to find someway to keep Rip interested in the games. (Like breaking up the JMAX / Big Ben pairing which has to be totally frustrating Rip.) And of course, we still got to 1)Get Monroe starting and 2) Mostly rotate JMAX / Big Ben / and Monroe as our bigs with CV playing a more minor role.

One last thing. Stuckey. Don't like his play? Tell some of his teammates to find thereselves out in front of him on fast breaks. You trying to tell me Stuckey can outrun you while dribbling the ball up court? Give him someone to pass to out in front of him. Stuckey was virtually even on plus minus in this game. He is not the problem.

One other last thing. Rebounding. Yes, we got out rebounded. Yes, we need to work harder on our coordination of when a shot is taken and when we have someone to contend for an offensive rebound. Too many times where too many Pistons are back on defense even though all - and I mean all, of the other team are still under the basket getting that defensive board. Somebody has got to coordinate this. There are, for instance, way too many guard rebounds available that we never pick up for running back to soon. Rebounding? What is that? Its when someone misses. Orlando did not miss much in this game, so there were few defensive rebounds available. Its only our offense rebounding that we really could have upped that rebound total from tonight.

Well, thats about it. It is encouraging to see Coach actually try a bit to coach. Still a lot ot change though. Starting Monroe. Playing Daye more. Possibly even playing Summers again. Whatever it takes. But don't go too slow, or the season soon will be a waste.

The only thing left for this season is getting our guys development time. Anyone thinking Tay will be here after this season isn't paying attention. If he isn't traded, no way do the Pistons resign him - not because he can't play, because he shouldn't play here. He's old and this team will NEVER again be a top team before he's way past his prime.

Rip is beyond useless. He doesn't try anymore. He needs to be on a contender, but he'll have to wait a season when his contract will be attractive (expiring).

Play: Stuckey, Gordon, Daye, Monroe, CV, Summers, JJ (when he gets back) and White (when he gets back). Anyone else who plays is just biding time here. We're heading to a top five pick in this draft - we're that bad.

Draft: we really ought to be in line to get a megastar. It's our turn, and we're freaking 6-14. That's as good as it gets for a team with next to no interior players. BTW, Monroe's got a chance to be great. He's not a sure thing, but I think he can be outstanding.